OK so what am I up to now? I am working on a piece for the KZNSA Gallery for January next year. The theme is Urbanity:
urbanity refers to the characteristics, personality traits, and viewpoints associated with cities and urban areas. People who can be described as having urbanity are also referred to as citified. The word is related to the Latin urbanitas with connotations of refinement and elegance, the opposite of rusticus, associated with the countryside. In Latin the word referred originally to the view of the world from ancient Rome. Urbane has a similar meaning; the relationship of urbane to urban is similar to the relationship humane bears to human.
OK so lets simplify that; urbanity refers to the city/urban environment and the life and people associated with it. An interesting enough topic I suppose. My focus, I think, will be on the isolation that results from this urban living (aided by the pervasiveness of social networking, of course). These days we rarely even know our neighbours, let alone spend time with friends or family. I find this really ironic considering how close we live to everything now; easy access with minor inconvenience. However, we might as well live on different planets. Images that come immediately to my mind are squatter camps on the fringes of cities and single white females in fortified little apartments. So how to progress from there? Here are some of my experimental images which I am playing around with. These are photographs of embroideries I have done which I think reflect the isolation we both subject our selves to and are subjected to within the context of our modern lives. This simple, basic action of self-pleasure I depict speaks of our need for contact and release from the physical stresses and confines of our mundane lives; a moment of intimacy (even if it is only solitary).
